Earthweek: Scientists looking at trees lost in deadly Typhoon Haiyan

Nov. 22, 2013

Dozens of bodies of typhoon victims are placed near city hall on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2013, as workers prepare a mass grave on the outskirts of the ravaged city of Tacloban. Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms on record, hit the country's eastern seaboard on Friday, destroying tens of thousands of buildings and displacing at least a half-million people. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) / AP

Written by

Steve Newman

The record tropical cyclone devastation just inflicted across the heart of the Philippines may have also unlocked a vast amount of climate-warming carbon, according to recent studies. While it's still too early to determine just how much carbon-storing forest Typhoon Haiyan ripped out of the ground, studies of previous tropical cyclones indicate the number of trees lost could be enormous.

A study of the aftermath of much weaker Hurricane Katrina in the southern United States showed that storm tore down about 320 million trees, eliminating their ability to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it. The untold number of trees felled by Typhoon Haiyan will eventually be replaced as the forests grow back. And those forests will once again be able to help remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere if not felled again by future storms.

Eternal Refugees

It is becoming apparent to many forced to evacuate in March 2011 by Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster that they will never be able to return to the ghost towns that were once their homes. A third of the 160,000 people displaced when the nearby Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced meltdowns and explosions are still in temporary housing. Social workers report many are experiencing domestic troubles, alcoholism and illness brought on by their uncertain futures.

Hideo Hasegawa, who runs a nonprofit that is trying to help the evacuees, told the Japan Daily Press that politicians need to be honest with the refugees. He suggests telling them they can never go home because the decontamination efforts are delayed and may never be able to make their hometowns habitable again.

A Flowing Wonder

Scientists have observed a rare type of lava flowing well over a year after it was spewed by one of the planet's most violent eruptions. Chile's Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano exploded in 2011 with such force that it sent a plume of ash streaming halfway around the world. While that eruption ended in April 2012, an international team of researchers found its obsidian lava (volcanic glass) still moving at the speed of some glaciers. It was the first time such a flow had been observed.

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Because of the discovery, scientists now know that, like liquid red lava, the obsidian lava can still flow at temperatures up to 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit beneath a shallow layer of hardened crust. "We found out that the lava was still oozing after almost a year, and it advances between 1 and 3 meters (between 3 feet and 10 feet) a day," said Hugh Tuffen of the U.K.'s Lancaster University.

Dolphin-Whale Deaths

The measles-like virus that has killed hundreds of dolphins as it spread down the U.S. Atlantic coast over the past few months has now begun infecting whales. The dolphin morbillivirus has killed more than 750 dolphins since June, when it first emerged off beaches from Long Island to Virginia.

The southward migration of the marine mammals since then has spread the disease all the way to Florida, and the deaths it has caused are at a record high. The U.S. environment agency NOAA says the virus is also responsible for killing two pygmy sperm whales and three humpback whales found dead or dying along the Atlantic coast. Wildlife officials say that if the current outbreak is anything like the previous 1987-1988 record die-off, it's only halfway through, and fatalities will go much higher.

Tropical Cyclones

A massive international relief effort was launched after the strongest tropical cyclone ever to make landfall devastated a long swath of the central Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan later went on to strike Vietnam and South China as a much weaker storm. As many as 300 people perished on the Horn of Africa when Tropical Cyclone 03A roared into Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region. Officials say that entire villages were wrecked and more than 100,000 head of livestock were killed by the storm.

Earthquakes

A 5.2 magnitude quake in western Tajikistan wrecked more than 100 homes and damaged about 255 others, according to emergency officials. Shaking was felt strongly in the capital, Dushanbe. Earth movements were also felt in New Delhi, Tokyo, the eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, southern Greece, interior parts of the San Francisco Bay Area and north-central Texas.

Long-Haul Tuna

An Atlantic bonito tuna has been caught 4,000 miles from where it was tagged off the coast of Spain in 2006, according to that country's science news agency, SINC. When the fish was tagged by fishermen seven years ago, it was more than 40 pounds lighter and half as long as when another fisherman off Venezuela recently snagged it.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas said the 3,958-mile journey by the fish was the longest ever recorded for a tagged tuna.